


We Know That Dreams Are Dead

by Fangirlingmanaged



Series: Even More Angst Nobody Asked For (AKA Bonus Content) [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Cute Peter, Hurt Tony, M/M, Protective Natasha Romanov, Steve Feels, Superfamily, Superhusbands, Tony Feels, but it's really about him, he's not really in the fic, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6771670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlingmanaged/pseuds/Fangirlingmanaged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is so much like Tony it hurts, Steve thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Know That Dreams Are Dead

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen Civil War a) what the fuck are you doing with your life? and b) don't read this shit.  
> That movie got me in so many ways, and I love it so very much! Ugh, T'Challa came and slayed my heart, i swear, and I love Peter so freaking much and... ugh, I loved Tony and Steve at the end even with the fight and everything.  
> But what i LOVED LOVED LOOOOOOVED so much was Tony with Peter like UGH he's such a dad. And he doesn't see that. TONY IS A FUCKING WONDERFULLY KIND AND BRILLIANT AND INNOCENT HUMAN BEING OKAY. I understand he messed up in some ways, and I get many of Steve's points, but Tony is so naive and good sometimes that I'm jsut like... UGH. I was kind of waiting to watch this movie and be like "Okay, so Stucky makes more sense," but NOPE the Stony is stronger than ever in this one after that movie.  
> Okay, I'll stop now. Enjoy!

The first thing that Steve thinks about when he sees him is the fact that Tony can be so goddamn dense sometimes. Even with the tension in the air of what is about to happen between them, what, in a way, _Steve_ is about to make happen, he can’t help the sharp feeling of fond exasperation that he has for the genius. Steve’s pretty sure that even if he had been around to be asked about it there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. Tony’s too earnest and persuasive that he could convince most anyone, if the eye roll Nat throws at him is anything to go by, there was not much anyone could have done. Steve can’t help but wistfully wish for the same to be truth for him.

“Cap, Captain America,” the man in the leotard tells him. He hears Buck chuckle from behind him, and Steve’s lips tremble as he tries to fight a smile. God, it’s a _kid_ in there.

“We’re fighting toddlers now,” Clint mutters behind him. Too low for anyone but Steve and Bucky and maybe Scott to hear. Steve agrees with him wholeheartedly.

“Kid,” Tony says, and that snaps Steve out of his brief moment of humor.

                                                                                                     ***

When the fighting starts, Steve immediately understands why Tony brought the kid along. It’s not only the fact that he has the weird spider powers, which are pretty cool if Steve’s being honest, but the fact that the kid is so much like the genius. He’s fast and incredibly talented just like Tony, but he’s also mouthy as all hell. He’s kept a running commentary throughout the whole fight, and Steve has already heard him say “Sorry, Mr. Stark,” a total of five times and they’re not even halfway done with the fight. Steve can only imagine what his genius is saying to the kid.

 _Taste of your own medicine, sweetheart,_ he thinks and immediately regrets letting himself forget what’s really happening to them. They’re in a damn war, and he’s thinking that when this is all said and done everything would go back to normal. Dear God, he won’t be able to even get to know the kid’s _name_ after all this. He won’t be able to get to know the whys or hows of Tony even getting to know about him.

He’s lost in his own mind, going through the motions, which lets the kid get the jump on him. Steve’s quick, though, and soon he’s thrown the kid on top of one of the vehicles littering the airport. For a moment, Steve allows himself to look at him. Red, blue and black leotard aside, he’s not much to look at. Tall and lanky, and Steve smiles to himself trying to imagine the face behind the mask. Dark messy hair and brown eyes, a mouth that smirks and goes on and on a mile a minute, and a wonderful brain almost nobody understands.

 _Or maybe,_ Steve’s mind supplies as he hears the whine of repulsor blasts, _maybe you’re just projecting_. He has to admit it’s true, but something in his gut tells him he’s not far off.

“You don’t know everything,” Steve tells the kid, who throws more of that web thing at him.

“I know enough,” the kid replies, and Steve can’t help but smirk. Yeah, he’s definitely not projecting here. Tony had very obvious reasons why he picked him.

“I’m sure you don’t,” Steve says a little condescendingly.

“Mr. Stark told me that you’re wrong,” he says with conviction. Steve’s mostly annoyed, for obvious reasons, but he also feels slightly vindicated. He sees a glint of red and gold in his periphery and thinks _I told you you would be wonderful with children_ , Steve thinks in its direction.

“There’s things you need to know,” Steve tells him sternly. Whether the kid is funny or adorable doesn’t matter now, there’s more at stake here. It’s not a game.

“Mr. Stark told me you’d say that,” the kid replies. Steve really rolls his eyes then. Always a damn one liner.

“What else did Mr. Stark tell you?”

“That you’re wrong,” there’s something telling in the kid’s voice. Steve wants to drop his shield and grab him by the shoulders, then, desperately. Wants to shake him and ask what it was that Tony said. Because it might be sad and pathetic but Steve hasn’t heard or seen _his_ Tony since before the war. Since Bucky first appeared, Steve hasn’t seen _his fella_ and he wants to know the truth desperately. “He said you were wrong, but you thought you were right.” The kid’s voice turns hard, and Steve knows that this particular conversation is over. “And that makes you dangerous.”

                                                                                          ***

Steve doesn’t get a look at the kid until later when he’s running towards the quinjet with Bucky. Scott’s plan seems to have gotten them the diversion they need, and boy Steve really needs to reevaluate his life, and they make a run for their escape route. Bucky pelts forward as fast as his legs can carry him, and Steve tries to do the same, but every time he hears a repulsor whirring his guilt gets heavier. A big part of him wants to run back and finally talk it out, but a curse from one of his teammate’s as they get hit shakes him out of it.

They’re nearing the jet when the impulse to look back gets the best of him and he turns his head. He almost trips on his own feet as he sees the armor on the floor. Red and gold glinting in the sun in a protective stance and Steve’s panic rises. _He’s okay he’s okay he’s okay he can’t NOT be okay he’s fine he’s fine,_ the words run like a mantra in his head. Bucky’s noticed his hesitation now and is about to grab him and force him forward when Steve sees what’s happening.

The kid’s on the floor, Iron Man’s arms cradling him up, and Steve’s stomach churns. _Not the kid_ , he thinks. Whatever this feeling, this _bond_ , that he’s formed with the kid in between punches and adorably innocent excitement was had him yearning to turn back. Bucky and the mission be damned as long as he got to join Tony in making sure that the spiderling was okay.

Iron Man’s hands help the kid sit up, even Steve being so far away notices the gentleness in the way they raise him up, and a metal hand comes to rest on the kid’s abdomen. He can’t see their mouths moving, but Steve knows Tony’s trying to get him to stand down if the patting of the kid’s stomach is anything to go by. The kid’s trying to get up when Steve realizes he needs to go _now._

Tony’s abruptly standing up, and Steve realizes he’s noticed their intent. _Stay,_ Steve wants to yell at him, _stay with the kid and make sure he’s alright._ The feeling intensifies when Tony gets up and the kid falls backward patting his own tummy. There’s no time to dwell on what’s happening between his lover and the newbie, though, because he notices Prince T’Challa stalking after Bucky.

                                                                                                     ***

Steve gets to know the kid’s name hours later. Horribly long, and painful hours later. He’s staring listlessly out of his med room in the Avengers facility after they’d been picked up from the Hydra base in Siberia. His mind feels oddly disconnected from his body. The pain there and in his heart of what he’d done to Tony too great for him to process things.

Tony’s in surgery, there’s a seventy-percent chance that he won’t make it unscathed. _That’s too high, Steve,_ the Tony in his head had said nervously. He’d been standing in the corner of his room when Clint had dropped by to let him know. Shade-Tony had appeared right about the time Tony went into cardiac arrest in the med-jet on their way back. Bucky had to physically restrain him to keep him from launching himself at his lover. Admittedly, Shade-Tony is probably the reason Steve’ been feeling so disconnected from reality. He finds that he doesn’t care. Seeing any form of Tony is better than knowing he soon might never get to see him at all.

So, when the voices outside his room break through the fog in his brain, Steve is numbly surprised. He realizes that it’s the unfamiliarity of them that managed to break through the bubble he’s created in his thoughts. The voice is male, young and nervous, and it’s talking a mile a minute.

“—showed me this place when he came to take me from Aunt May’s. Said I should come here when everything was done and that I could play. Not that there’s toys or anything, Mr. Stark and I call the tech toys, you see, because we tinker with them. Well, _I_ tinker with them. _He_ does really cool stuff with—but I mean, you already knew that, you’ve seen the armor and everything and I—Anyway, I just knew I had to come here because—“

“Peter,” Natasha’s clear voice interrupts him. She’s sharp, but gentle when she says the name. “It’s okay for you to be here, but I need to know _how_ you got here.”

The kid mumbled something, and Steve finds himself drawing to the door as if tethered to the voices on the other side. Natasha asks him to repeat himself one more time, and the tremor in his voice carries even through the door. Steve hangs his head in guilt at his words.

“I hitched a ride from a friend, he dropped me off at the next town over and then I walked here. Aunt May wouldn’t let me come when I asked to see Mr. Stark, and that seemed suspicious because they got along so well, and I—I just—I had to know how he was. He—the last time he talked to me he said he was gonna do something dangerous, and he—he said he just—I just need to know he’s okay, Ms. Romanov,” his voice faded at the end of her name.

“Stark is a fighter,” Natasha said clearly. Steve moves to the little window on his door and peers at them. The kid’s hunched over and fidgeting with his hands, and Steve gets a little pinch of pleasure at the fact that he’d pegged him right. _Just like you, sweetheart,_ Steve tells Shade-Tony. Natasha has a hand clasped on his shoulder and the other carding through his hair. Steve aches with the want to do the same, and the jealousy of having nobody to do that to him at all.

And suddenly he’s looking into angry green eyes, and he rears back in alarm at the pure anger in them. “He’s survived betrayals before,” Natasha says, but while she’s talking to Peter she’s looking evenly at Steve. “He’ll get over this one too. He always comes back stronger in the end.”

“Never this bad,” the kid says quietly.

“There’s many things about Mr. Stark you’ve yet to find out, Spiderling,” she says, and the tone of her voice is fond. The side of the kid’s mouth Steve can see cracks up at the name, and he figures there’s a story there. “If you have doubts, ask him to tell you about Stane, and you’ll know that I am right.” Steve feels bile rise to his throat being compared to Obadiah.

“Can I see him?” the kid asks with quiet hope.

“Not yet, Peter,” Natasha replies back just as softly.

“Then when?” and Steve’s acutely aware of how young he truly is. Sure, he’s probably in high school and probably a mess as any other teenager, but he’s young still. Some of the innocence most kids his age lose somewhere between high school and college is still there, and he’d been dragged into this stupid fight. Steve wants to be angry at Tony, and he _is_ , but he also knows that he had forced his hand. God, they’d fucked so many things up.

“He has to decide if he wants to come back on his own, Peter,” and it’s one of the only times Steve has ever heard her sound so vulnerable.

“Why wouldn’t he want to come back?” The innocence in the question rattles Steve. Natasha, too, if the sharp exhale she gives is any indication. Steve glances at Shade-Tony, and sees the indecision there. It makes him want to curl up in a ball and cry.

“Tony… he fought things more dangerous than death in this war,” Natasha tells him. The truth of her words seem to click something in Peter’s head because he snaps his head up. Steve moves closer to the window again and Peter turns in his direction as if sensing his stare. Sharp brown eyes stare at him with something like disappointment.

“Mr. Stark said _he_ was dangerous,” Peter retorts with something close to anger.

Natasha stares impassively at Steve for what seems like minutes before she squeezes Peter’s shoulder and steers him away from Steve. He wants to call them back. Wants to know what Peter knows about Tony, and about him, and about _them._ He wants to ask Natasha about Tony, and the rest of his team. Is everyone still in that god awful facility Ross had concocted? Had Bucky gone along with the plan to get them out? He’d been gone a while. And Rhodey, God, Steve needed to know about Rhodey.

But when he opened his mouth Natasha’s hateful scowl was the response, and then they were gone.

And Shade-Tony was wobbling in his vision.

And Steve slid down the door and wrapped his arms around his knees.

And the tears came.

And the self-hate stung him sharp.

And Shade-Tony said _I don’t think I can_.

And Steve did not want to know what he meant, but felt it in his gut.

And Steve had never felt more alone. Or more afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> I got so many fic ideas after CACW


End file.
